1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer databases. More particularly, it relates to controlling access to a database by agents and end-users.
2. Background Art
Many Lotus Domino database applications have both high end-user usage, often across multiple time zones, as well as high agent usage—that is, modifications to the data by scheduled programs. A database or application typically includes documents, data elements (fields), agents and access control lists (ACL's). Agents update data elements in one or more documents and may be invoked by an end user. Scheduled agents update data elements in one or more documents automatically without the need for invocation by an end user. ACL's control the degree to which an end user or an agent may access a database
Concurrent updating of documents by both end-user and agent can result in save conflicts, replication conflicts and other unpredictable results.
Problems occur when end-users, agents, and/or replication processes simultaneously access a database. These include replication conflicts and save conflicts resulting in the updates of one or more parties being lost. An example of these problems involves the high volume off-shift updating of documents, where it is desirable to temporarily revoke end user edit access until the bulk updates are completed in order to avoid inadvertent updates of the same document. The resulting conflict documents, depending on how they are handled by the database administrator or follow on agents, could result in loss of data, duplicate documents or both. Thus, there is a need in the art for an improved system and method for minimizing or entirely eliminating replication and/or save conflicts.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved system for controlling access to a computer databases.